The hands-off sanitation marketing model: emerging lessons from rural Cambodia

Sanitation marketing is fast emerging as a sustainable way to increase access to sanitation at scale. Although early evidence suggests the significant potential of sanitation marketing, practical experience remains limited. This briefing paper shares the lessons and experience from a sanitation marketing program in Cambodia. Based on extensive market research, the project developed a range of marketing strategies that have evolved into a ‘hands off’ model for sanitation marketing. The model leverages partnerships and minimizes external intervention, keeping barriers to market entry low and increasing the likelihood of sustained demand creation after external interventions cease. Early results are promising, with over 2000 unit sales recorded in the first five months of the pilot campaign. Lessons gleaned from experience in developing the ‘hands off’ model are widely applicable and the model itself is emerging as a replicable application of sanitation marketing.